Itís Christmas Eve, 1938, when Madge Arwell finds a crater with a man in it. The man is wearing a space suit with a his helmet on backwards and can't see a thing. He got dressed in a bit of a hurry, what with free floating in space and a ship exploding behind him and all. The woman tells her children, Lily and Cyril, that she'll be off for a bit: she has to take a man with a backwards helmet who may or may not be an angel to find a phone box. When they find the TARDIS (after several false starts), he tells her that he'll thank her properly someday, once the suit is done healing him.

Three years later, Madge's pilot husband is lost at sea in the war when his plane is trapped in the dark. Devastated, she escapes war-torn London with her two children for a dilapidated house in Dorset. She is crippled with grief at the news her husband has been lost over the channel, but determined to give Lily and Cyril the best Christmas ever and simply tell them later. She keeps up her Stepford Smiler act bravely.

When they arrive at the house, the regular caretaker has been replaced by the Doctor, who simply introduces himself as the new caretaker. He's very much playing The Wonka, and he's turned the house into a fantasy playground for the kids. The furniture moves, the beds are hammocks, and the Christmas tree is beautiful. There's one giant present underneath it. When the Doctor realises what has happened to Madge's husband, he agrees to help her give her children a wonderful Christmas.

Of course, little Cyril sneaks out of his hammock and into the giant present a day early. He ends up in the Whoniverse's equivalent of Narnia. It's wintery and gorgeous, and the trees look very Christmas-like, including decorative balls. Well, eggs. One of them bursts open, and Cyril follows whatever came out of it.

The Doctor and Lily quickly follow. The Doctor is confused — this is supposed to be the single safest planet in the galaxy. He had planned a nice holiday for the kids here, without any danger, and definitely without growing footsteps leading out of giant Christmas tree eggs. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver still doesn't do wood. When Trees Attack, this is a problem.

Madge has followed them by now. She's greeted by Droxil (Bill Bailey) and his crew, wearing power suits and standing near an industrial Humongous Mecha from Androzani (Major, not Minor). Droxil votes to shoot her. His crew disagree — one of them has mommy issues and starts to involuntarily cry, and the other simply refuses to shoot an unarmed and shivering civilian woman. Madge is not unarmed, however, and forces the crew to let her inside their mecha.

The statues in the tower are made of wood. Cyril is invited to sit on their throne and wear their crown. He's discarded, however, because he's "weak". When Lily and the Doctor arrive, the Doctor is quickly discarded by them as well, but Lily is considered "strong".

Droxil informs Madge that they're a harvesting crew. The wood from the forest is the universe's best power source, and they're about to go melt the forest with acid rain. Madge is shocked and tells them that they need to save her children before it's too late, but it's impossible: the mechanism is already in place and can't be stopped now. As a last-ditch resort, Madge begs to be allowed to pilot the mecha towards her children. She doesn't care that it takes years to learn: she was in her husband's plane once, and she's a Mama Bear, and with those two things combined she can do anything. The crew tell her that she's mad, but she absolutely insists.

As it turns out, the tree statues are not statues: they're the souls of the trees that are about to be murdered. The tower is not built, but grown, as their safe haven. They've left their tree husks to go find a new world somewhere else. The Doctor loves it, and tells them to hop on inside his head and get on with it. Trees are good, he loves trees, one of them fancied him once, but the trees refuse: it has to be someone who's "strong", and Lily isn't mature enough yet.

As the acid rain starts, all hope seems to be lost, but the giant mecha comes stumbling out of the forest and towards the tower. It's piloted by Madge. The thing falls over, of course, but Madge manages to get out of the mecha and into the tower with only a few gaping acid holes in her coat. The trees latch onto her immediately. She's the strongest creature there is: a grown mother. As it turns out, the trees are speaking the universe's base language: "weak" means male, and "strong" means female, simply because females beget new life. "How else does life travel but the mothership?" Madge is quite happy to serve as the vessel for the trees and power up their transportation. The souls of the entire forest are absorbed into her head. She takes it extremely well. With the powerful thought of "home" to lock onto, the heroes and the tree collectively depart into the time vortex.

Trouble brews on their way because the thought of "home", for Madge, includes her husband. As her thoughts are projected before her eyes, she realises that she will also need to remember her husband vividly if she wants to get the trees to safety. She has to see him die, and his final minutes on his plane will be shown to her kids as well. It can't be helped, the Doctor says, and as they make it to safety and the trees leave her mind again, Madge breaks down into tears.

The Doctor decides to give the family some privacy while Madge explains to her kids what happened to their dad. She's interrupted when the Doctor rushes back in again, rambling about something outside that they need to see. Outside on the grass is a plane. Madge's husband gets out, very confused, but happy to see his family. When Madge moved through the time vortex, locking onto her husband in thought, the guiding light of the trees' vessel was able to guide his plane to safety right through time and space. Madge and her family cry, and the Doctor smirks at their all-too-human happy tears.

Back at the house, Madge finds the Doctor in the attic, tinkering with things. She sees the TARDIS and instantly realises that he's her space suit angel. When she asks if he doesn't have his own family to go spend Christmas with, he tries to explain to her that everyone thinks he's dead. Madge gets very cross at that, and tells him to go back to his mum and dad and tell them he's sorry, right now. He sort of smiles and says he'll think about it.

Amy opens the door and sees her son-in-law standing there quite sheepishly. He's not quite sure how long it's been. Two years, she informs him (again), and they knew he was alive. Their daughter told them because she's a good girl. Neither of them wants to give the first hug, but after about a minute, they both laugh and relent and hug each other. As Amy invites him in for Christmas dinner with her and Rory, the Doctor notices that his face is a bit wet and that happy tears may not be just a silly human thing.

Tropes:

Action Prologue: The episode begins with the Doctor escaping an exploding spaceship. While this leads to him meeting Madge, it's otherwise unconnected with the plot of the episode. It also serves as a bit of a Lampshade Hanging / Take That to the Christmas specials of the Russell T Davies era, essentially condensing the entire plot of each (large spaceship ready to attack Earth, the Doctor saves the day) into a five-minute prologue before getting on with the real plot.

Adult Fear: This episode involves a lot this. Imagine, your children are lost in the wilderness, with a very strange man you don't trust, and now people are telling you that the whole area is about to become horrifically dangerous and anyone within is doomed. When Madge pulls a gun on them, the workers don't believe for a second that she'd use it. Until she says the words "I'm looking for my children." Then they know she is very serious.

Art Major Biology: In contrast to the Doctor's slightly mystical technobabble explaining the plot twist, in real life, there's no universal "male" and "female" dichotomy in biology, and pine trees are themselves an exception to it, bearing both male and female organs on the same tree. Then again, these are alien trees so there might be a difference between them and the Earth variety.

Ask a Stupid Question...: When the Doctor wonders aloud about who would ever open their christmas present early, Lily just stares at him. He answers his own question: "...Shut up...Everyone."

Big Red Button: In the prequel, the Doctor has his finger on one. When he takes it off, the ship will explode.

Big Sister Bully: Lily comes across as one to Cyril when she accusses him of making up words and "breathing".

Chekhov's Gun: It gets lost in the Doctor's rapid-fire... Doctoriness, but the children's bedroom has a "selection of torches for midnight feasts or secret reading"; lo and behold everyone has their own torch when they pass through the portal.

Chekhov's Skill: Madge is able to drive the robotic walker to the lighthouse because the control panel resembles that of a plane, which Reg taught her to fly once.

Christmas Episode: Madge is determined to make this "the best christmas ever" so her kids don't think that Christmas is what took their father away from them.

Cloudcuckoolander: The Doctor is in rare form; he "repairs" the house with spinning cars, includes the magna carta in a kid's bedroom and neglects to put in beds, and when introducing himself, goes off onto a tangent about planets where he's Persona Non Grata.

Cool House: The Doctor "repairs" the estate in several ways. The sitting room has bumper car chairs, the kitchen has a lemonade faucet, the kids' room has everything but beds (can't fit everything, after all, so it has hammocks), and the Christmas tree is motorized in several places. Oh, and he set up a portal to a forest of living trees inside a box as a present.

Everybody Calls Him Barkeep: The Doctor. He introduces himself as "The Doctor, or the Caretaker, or Get Off This Planet", but throughout the episode, everyone calls him "Caretaker". This is his intention, as he is supposed to be going incognito from this point.

Everybody Lives: Not only that, but everybody gets what they want! The Androzani get their fuel, but the trees' spirits live on, Madge finds her children and unintentionally saves her husband, and the Doctor learns that he does have people who care about him.

Getting Crap Past the Radar: When the Doctor mentions he can't take off the impact suit (which is on backwards) because it's repairing him, Madge asks if it might accidentally repair him backwards as well. The first thing he checks is his crotch.

Green Aesop: Though surprisingly understated for a story about deforestation, this episode's plot is about trees evacuting their homes before they are melted down.

The Grinch: Discussed. Madge is afraid to tell her kids that their father is dead on Christmas in part because she's afraid she'll ruin the holiday for them for the rest of their lives.

Droxil: There's nothing you could say that would convince me you'd ever use that gun. Madge: I'm looking for my children. Droxil: (suddenly looks quite convinced he might get shot)

Mood Whiplash: The montage of the Doctor showing Madge and her kids the modifications he made to the house (which is magical in a way) comes to an abrupt end when Madge yells at the Doctor. Then, after she and the Doctor talk in private, that is interrupted when the children become overjoyed when seeing the Christmas tree the Doctor set up.

Motherhood Is Superior: The theme ranges from the sci-fi angle where the futuristic tree harvestors are outwitted and captured by motherly instinct to the fantasy angle where the tree people reject males (even the Doctor) as their vessel because "You are weak", but accept females - Madge in particular - as "the mothership". How else does life travel?

Never Found the Body: Madge's telegram notes that Reg is lost at sea rather than being confirmed dead. This provides the means of preventing his death; the tree people's provided a beacon.

No Antagonist: None of the factions which appear in the episode are antagonists, even if it does not appear this way at first. The harvesters are unable to do anything to help the other characters, and the trees are only trying to save their race. The main characters even cooperate with them at the end and they part ways without either side being harmed. This is quite a contrast to all previous Christmas specials, as well as most other episodes. (This obviously ignores the big spaceship seen in the opening, but they barely have any effect on the main plot anyway...)

The Power of Love: Madge flies the forest through the time vortex, and gets her husband home, by focusing on the power in the concept of "home" which includes family.

Present Peeking: The widow's youngest child gets curious and has to peek at the Doctor's big present.

Reality Ensues: After his spacesuit helmet gets stuck the wrong way round, the Doctor instructs Madge to simply help him get to a police box. After she does so, he remembers that it's the 1930s and there are real police boxes around.

The title of the episode is a nod to the C. S. Lewis story The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. So is the plot premise: family leave the Blitz for an old house in the country, eccentric professorial caretaker, magical wardrobe, portal to snowy forest where wonderful things happen. There's even a lamppost. The Doctor also directly quotes the Professor:

The Doctor: What do they teach in schools these days?

The foot of the walker landing in front of Madge is reminiscent of the leg of the AT-AT landing near Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.

Space Is Noisy: Noisy enough that the Doctor can talk without such foolish things like air.

Spoof Aesop: "Cyril! What have I told you about opening your presents early? Something like this was bound to happen."

Stalking Is Love: Reg kept following Madge home until she agreed to marry him. She didn't want to cause a scene. It's not as creepy as it sounds as Madge's memories show them walking together and conversing like friends, so it's more like he was walking her home instead of stalking her.

Tsundere: When Amy answers the door, she has a squirt gun in case of annoying carolers. When she sees it's the Doctor, she's momentarily stunned, and then squirts him anyway because he stayed away for two years (again). She also refuses to hug him, and then does so anyway and says they've already set a place for him at the dinner table.

Vader Breath: The "stormtroopers" that appear in the forest talk like this due to their helmets.

What happened to the people Madge was expecting to be waiting for them at the house? Although it isn't mentioned in the episode, Maurice Cole mentions in an interview that they won the lottery, which the Doctoroftenarranges.

When Trees Attack: The Wooden King and Queen who live in the forest are initially thought to be dangerous. It's a subversion, as all they want is to save the souls of their race and are not at all hostile.

The female interrogator, while still bumbling, seems slightly more logical and calm under threat. Madge chats with her passively while chaining up the male interrogators, insisting they can't be trusted.

The tree people have a magic crown (relay!) that, when somebody wears on their head, allows them to absorb the forest's life force. It rejects Cyril and the Doctor, works slightly for Lily, and completely works for Madge, as the tree people consider her the "mothership".

Women Drivers: Madge bump into lots of things while driving the Doctor to the phone box. She doesn't fare much better when she hijacks a Humongous Mecha; the Doctor calls it a total write off. She does pretty well at traversing the time vortex, but accidentally goes further into the past then she needed to before landing in the right era.

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